Comment, analysis and other offerings from Thursday’s FT,
John Gapper: Apple’s network helps prevent a fall
The fact that Apple persuaded others to rally round has helped to shield it from the margin squeeze in the personal computer and consumer electronics industries. It has become the hub of a creative network.
Obama must act to curb executive greed
Leo Hindery, former chief executive of AT&T Broadband, writes that Barack Obama was absolutely right a week ago when he demanded that the compensation of the executives, managers and traders at the failed financial institutions that received bail-out cash be scrutinised by a new “oversight council”. He was right because these are the people who saddled the rest of us with a staggering losses.
Jonathan Guthrie: English winemakers get that warm feeling
English wine has overcome formidable sales resistance to become a desirable tipple. The damaging confusion is with “British wine”. This is an economical white spirit substitute made from imported grape extract on industrial estates.
Editorial comment: Sarkozy hesitates to wield the axe
The global economic and financial crisis has proven that the “French model” of tighter regulation of globalisation and of markets is coming into its own. In the post-crisis world, France’s message will be “better understood”.
Lex on the ECB
Call it a liquidity deluge, riding the yield curve, the carry trade, or what you will. After the European Central Bank said it would accept all bids for unlimited one-year money at its 1 per cent policy rate, only a banker with a rock for a head would have stayed away.
Markets Insight: Efficient markets theory is dead
James Montier, global strategist at Société Générale, writes that the efficient markets hypothesis, or EMH, is the financial equivalent of Monty Python’s dead parrot. No matter how much you point out that it is dead, the believers simply state that it is just resting.
FT Video: The Short View
Chris Watling talks to John Authers about the commodity super-cycle
Lombard: Best practice needs a better explanation
Reworking the revered combined code on corporate governance won’t ever save us from another financial crisis. But it would be a mistake to dismiss the Financial Reporting Council’s review of the code as a discussion of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.